Big Legend (2018)

While I’m not sure we have enough Sasquatch movies for us to necessarily declare it a subgenre in its own right, it does seem that we’ve had a good few in recent years, from the excess-all-areas grindhouse of Dear God No! to the more grounded found footage of Willow Creek. Now, writer-director Justin Lee has taken on Bigfoot in Big Legend, a low-key yet high-ambition backwoods survivalist drama with a hearty side order of creature feature carnage. As with so much low-budget indie horror, it’s a film that could have used a fair bit more money to really do the material justice, but happily Big Legend has got enough of what really counts to work, even if it might not be the most striking or memorable film of its sort you’re ever likely to see.

Kevin Makely is Tyler, a former army ranger taking his girlfriend Natalie (Summer Spiro) out on a backpacking and fishing trip in a remote stretch of woods in the Pacific Northwest. The warning signs are there the second we see he’s brought an engagement ring along; and sure enough, after an idyllic start which really hammers home how much these two mean to one another, their joy is torn asunder when an unseen predator attacks their camp that night, stealing Natalie away. Skip ahead to one year later, and Tyler is being discharged from a mental institution (via a cameo from A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Amanda Wyss), having seemingly overcome his delusion that some sort of monster took Natalie. After being brought home by his mother (another fan-pleasing cameo, this time from Adrienne Barbeau), Tyler resolves to return to those same woods in the hopes of finding some answers, or failing that some sort of closure. There, he crosses paths with another hunter (Todd A Robinson) who has some stories of his own regarding the mysterious beast that walks those woods – and it won’t be long before the two men will come to rely on one another if they have any hope of getting back out of there alive.

Big Legend is Justin Lee’s first feature (though his IMDb shows he’s been regularly directing TV episodes and shorts since 2012), and it certainly suggests he’s an ambitious filmmaker with a good eye. He would also seem to have a good way with actors, and has a great leading man in Makely, who convinces as both grief-stricken widower (or whatever the equivalent of that is for fiancé) and a skilled outdoorsman. Intriguingly, the press release notes the film is based at least in part on a real life experience of Makely’s, although I don’t know the details there; certainly one would hope things didn’t quite so life-and-death for the actor in reality, even if there was a Sasquatch involved.

It may come as a surprise just how grounded an approach Big Legend takes for the most part. As well as boasting largely grounded, naturalistic performances, it also plays its hand close to its chest for a while, as the slow burn first act mostly follows Makely going quietly about his business in the woods alone, with long stretches devoid of dialogue. Once he does cross paths with Robinson, one might expect things to get a bit more hectic, but the conversations for the most part remain somewhat muted and introspective, with some of the philosophical overtones that we often find in survivalist films of this nature (notable recent examples being The Grey and The Revenant). Come the final scenes, however, and we’re pretty much in full-on Predator territory as our hero sets out to battle the beast to the death – although, again, it’s clear the film doesn’t have quite the budget to pull off the level of action and creature FX we might like.

All in all, then, Big Legend is a modest but commendable survivalist horror which works best when it plays things intimate – which makes the very last scene, whose contents I won’t spoil, feel a bit at odds with the rest of the movie. Even so, if you like the woods and Bigfoot, you’re likely to find plenty to enjoy regardless.

Big Legend is available now on DVD & VOD in the US, via Vega Baby & Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.